Repeating what the ABC is supposed to be doing under its charter is a waste of time because we have never had politicians with the guts to ensure that the organisation is made to do what it is meant to. With conservatism - what very little of it that's left in Australia - a dirty word, the situation will not change. We are stuck with an expensive dinosaur and a bunch of Leftist political activists.

As for Trump and US activities, who cares? The ABC's Trumpophobia and foreign affairs fixation is another example of the ABC's misuse and abuse of Australian taxpayers' money. A mere 25% of the population are 'friendly' towards the ABC, but successive Coalition governments have continued to fund it and pander to their enemies. Don't blame the Left, for whom the ABC is a favoured weapon; blame the cowardly Right (so-called) for doing nothing to defund their greatest enemy. Howard, Abbott, Turnbull, Morrison - all cowards when it comes to the ABC.

I am surprised by the narrow focus on just Charlottesville. With the ABC, Fairfax, the Guardian and all the other left wing media, they have three major hobby-horse issues: climate change, asylum seekers and Trump. The article could have focussed more broadly in my opinion.

The ABC rightly is continuing to expose the sports rorts affair. I don't recall it being quite as zealous in exposing the earlier "white-board" affair on the part of Labor. Labor similarly pork-barrelled the unions with public money, paid public positions, and legislative favour (e.g. unions' role in industry supperannuation) without much adverse criticism from the ABC.

Pretty shambolic piece in my opinion. Slam the ABC for left wing bias which it clearly does not have, call it out for being apparently speculative but then write something like this "There is some evidence that the permitted peaceful protest did not occur because it was violently blockaded by armed Far-Left militia members." without any evidence, and basically imply that although a member of one side committed murder we should regard both as being tarred with the same brush.

ABC for left wing bias which it clearly does not have
SteeleRedux,
What are you on today ? I'd like some too.

The ABC is well worth watching and listening to if only because of the absolute crap put up by the alternative.
Not everything they say/show is great or worthwhile but, in general, it beats the majority of the opposition commercial organisations hands down.

That the ABC is hopelessly biased toward the left viewpoint both as regards Australian, US and indeed global politics is hardly disputable. My feeling is that most politically-savvy viewers of the ABC would consciously or subconsciously factor that inevitable bias into their evaluation of issues covered by the ABC.

That perhaps too many less aware viewers might fall for the ABC groupthink partly explains at least some of the angst displayed by that viewership. For example the ABC spent the 18 months leadig up to the 2016 US election telling their viewers that the whole thing was basically a coronation of the inevitable winner, being Hillary. The left wing press in the US ditto. So when the real world interfered with their left wing fantasies, the left succumb to TDS virtually overnight. They have yet to recover.

Trump then compounded the pain by succeeding where they said he'd fail. The left can (sometimes) be quite forgiving (eg Hewson, Fraser) but they can never forgive being shown to be fools.

The ABC's coverage of events like Charlottesville simply mirrors that of the MSM in the US who can't forget that event and have already long forgotten the name James Hodgkinson (the Bernie Bro who shot Republican Steve Scalise and others).

Privatisation of the ABC is clearly a bridge too far. It now has way too much power and its primary aim is its own survival. Equally, changing the culture is near impossible short of sacking 3/4 of the staff.

My preferred solution is something close to what the UK is now considering. Making funding dependent of viewer support. Make the ABC pay-to-view with the government matching all subscription 3 to 1. See how important Australians think their ABC is then.